Tottenham Hotspur manager Mauricio Pochettino says his team paid the price for not putting Newcastle away as a late Ayoze Perez goal gave the Magpies an unlikely 2-1 win at White Hart Lane.
Eric Dier’s header had put Spurs in front late in the first half, but Magpies keeper Rob Elliot made a string of saves to keep the home side at bay.
Aleksandar Mitrovic levelled shortly after coming off the bench, and Perez won the game late on to snatch the points.
Speaking to the official Tottenham website after the game, Pochettino could not hide his displeasure with the result.
We feel very disappointed. We played very well in the first half and deserved to score maybe one or two more. But you know, in football, when you don’t kill off the game, things can happen. In the second half we were in control until they scored.
The Argentinian also spoke about the need to stay switched on until the final whistle and dismissed any talk that the late goal was caused by fatigue.
The problem is not about energy but if you make mistakes, you can pay and today was unlucky because the second half was under control and if we analyse the game, it’s not fair that we lost. But you need to work hard for 90, 95 minutes and it’s never finished until the referee’s whistle.
Pochettino also said that his side will learn from the defeat and look to bounce back when they travel to Southampton next weekend.
You always need to learn and this is a good mentality. We need assess why it happened. In football, sometimes it’s difficult to explain. I thought the first half was fantastic and it’s difficult to understand why we lost control in the second half.
